unlock northern mineral belt

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Plans for unlocking South Africa's coal- and platinum-rich northern mineral belt through transport, water and energy interventions, were deliberated upon on Friday by officials representing all three spheres of government.

The officials convened in Gauteng under the aegis of the newly formed Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission (PICC) and were addressed by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe.

The northern mineral belt centred on Limpopo and Mpumalanga, but Motlanthe said its development would also have strong linkages with the North West and multiplier effects in most of the other six provinces.

The PICC dialogue took place in the same week that Transnet unveiled its R300-billion, seven-year investment programme, which included plans to unlock the Waterberg coalfields, in Limpopo province. In addition, Eskom's R120-billion Medupi coal-fired power station is also under development in the region.

The Northern Mineral Belt project was one of 17 strategic integrated projects, or Sips, prioritised for development by the PICC, which was established last year to oversee the creation and implementation of a 20-year infrastructure roll-out, which would involve investments running to trillions of rands.

The Sips included rail, road, port, water, energy and communications infrastructure initiatives, as well as social infrastructure projects, such as the building of hospitals, schools and universities. Regional integration-supporting developments, particularly those that could raise intraregional trade and investment levels would also be pursued.

Motlanthe said the other 16 Sips, the full list of which had been endorsed by Cabinet, would be canvassed with officials over the coming weeks and months.

THE OTHER SIPS

Three of the other 'geographic' Sips - the south-eastern node and corridor, the Saldanha-Northern Cape development corridor and infrastructure projects in the North West - also have specific relevance to the resources industry. The fourth related to beefing up the logistics corridor linking KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and Gauteng.

Three 'energy' Sips had also been identified, including the development of new power generation facilities, support for green energy initiatives and electricity transmission and distribution projects.

There were also three 'spatial' Sips (including the integrated municipal infrastructure project, the integrated urban space and public transport programme and an agri-logistics and rural infrastructure Sip), three 'social infrastructure' Sips (revitalisation of public hospitals, the national school build programme and higher education facilities) and two 'knowledge' Sips (the Square Kilometre Array and Meerkat projects and expanding access to telecommunications).

The seventeenth Sip related to regional projects and included the Lesotho Highlands Phase 2 projects, regional roads and rail projects, power transmission infrastructure from Mozambique, and the development of hydropower capacity in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Lesotho and Mozambique.

President Jacob Zuma would also convene a conference with potential investors in the coming months to mobilise private financial resources and to enable companies to "adjust their plans" to the State's infrastructure roll-out.

The PICC plan had drawn on recent experience in large infrastructure projects, including the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the Gautrain, the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Programme and the airport refurbishments.

"One of the key lessons of the past infrastructure programmes is the importance of a strong partnership between the three spheres of government," Motlanthe averred, adding that the custodians of financial resources and those with regulatory responsibilities had to be aligned with the overall national plan for it to be effective.

He called on the officials to "buckle down" to the "serious work" of implementation, saying it was time to "make a departure" from the prevailing scenario were government developed good policy, but faired "poorly" in the delivery of that policy.

"The test of our effectiveness will be how well we can coordinate and integrate our work and the different elements of the infrastructure plan. This means addressing capacity constraints in the State, promoting wider partnerships in the society and improving coordination."